YUPPIE, YUMPIE, YIPPIE

This can get confusing.

Question: Was Jerry Rubin, the notorious hippie-radical of the late 1960s who later became a stockbroker, a yippie or a yuppie?

Answer: Both.

On New Years Day 1968, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, author of Steal This Book (who probably relinquished the royalties by his choice of title), formed the the Youth International Party or Yippies—an unlikely concoction of new left politics and hippie anarchy. Its first act was “guerrilla street theatre” at the 1968  Democratic Convention.

It was no coincidence Yippie rhymed with “hippie.” The flag displayed a green cannabis leaf over the red star symbol of Communism. Could it fly? Unlikely, and that was the point. The group had no official members and the platform consisted of a blank piece of paper. It was more a state of mind. The old left was unimpressed. One newspaper dubbed them “Groucho Marxists.”

Yuppies stood in stark contrast to Yippies. In a 1984 radio debate entitled “Yuppie vs. Yippe,” a reconstructed Jerry Rubin commented: “If IRA makes you think of the Irish Republican Army, you’re a yippie. But if you think it stands for Individual Retirement Account, you’re a yuppie.” Announcing he had “joined America rather than fighting it,” activists were exhorted to work from within the system. Hoffman scoffed that Rubin’s “world is as narrow as his tie.”

Newsweek declared 1984 “The Year of the Yuppie.” It was an acronym for “young urban professionals.” Such characters were briefly called “yumpies,” short for “young upwardly mobile professionals.” “Yumpie” is clunky and soon dropped.

Initially, “yuppie” was not negative, but quickly morphed into an image of selfish, superficial, materialistic, even amoral behavior—a psychographic more than a demographic. A yuppie would slip on Ferragamo loafers, cruise to a high-rise office in a Beamer to check his bloated stock portfolio, sup on a quiche and chardonnay lunch at an obscenely pricey restaurant, then rush home to attend his precocious five-year-old daughter’s  piano recital while oblivious to the army of homeless along the route.

This popular stereotype was showcased in the 1987 movie Wall Street.

BOOMERS TRIVIA QUESTIONS

►All but  one of these titles is regarded as a “yuppie” movie:

Trading Places
The Game
Lost Boys
First Wives Club
What About Bob?

►Boomer Match Game: Connect these revolutionaries to their later-in-life destiny:

Abbie Hoffman
Jerry Rubin
Bernadette Dohrn
Rennie Davis
Bobby Seale

New Age entrepreneur, Suicide, Professor, Youth charities, Killed in auto accident

Answers to Boomers Trivia Questions at end of post

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Buppie: an upwardly mobile black
Chuppie: a Chinese yuppie
Fruppie: Middle-aged frustrated urban professional
Guppie: gay urban professional.
Huppie: Hispanic urban professional.
Luppie: successful lesbian
Nuppie: nomadic professional
Scuppie: upwardly-mobile but socially conscious
Wuppie: immature web nerd making 6 figures
Yuppie flu: chronic fatigue syndrome

THIS DAY IN BABY BOOMER HISTORY

1995→ Dow Jones closes above 5,000 for the first time.
1990→ Wall Street wizard Michael Milken is sentenced to 10 years for security law violations.
1989→ A law banning smoking on most domestic flights signed is by President Bush.
1987→  Demi Moore and Bruce Willis marry.
1981→ Olivia Newton-John’s Physical single goes to #1 for 10 weeks.
1980→ The “Who Shot JR?” episode on television hit Dallas draws 83 million.
1980→ John and Yoko pose for their famous nude photo.

1974→ Freedom of Information Act passed over President Ford’s veto.
1973→ President Nixon reveals an 18 minute gap in a White House tape recording related to Watergate.
1963→ John F. Kennedy flies to Texas, where he is assassinated the following day.

ANSWERS TO BOOMERS TRIVIA QUESTIONS

►Lost Boys is about vampires, although some would regard this as a Yuppie theme.

►Boomer Match Game

Abbie Hoffman→ Suicide
Jerry Rubin→ Killed in auto accident
Bernadette Dohrn→ Professor
Rennie Davis→ New Age entrepreneur
Bobby Seale→ Youth charities

Bernadette Dorhn as a leader of the radical Weather Underground

Related Posts: Read about the Yippies at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago 7: A Boomer Media Circus. The Yuppies are often portrayed in movies as lonely and alienated. See The Big Chill.